Wow.. a month already! I have seen a number of indicators, including server acquisitions for System z, that suggest the economy may have bottomed out, or at least that pent up demand to continue running the large enterprises had to make some decisions on acquisitions. Certainly, the zEnterprise has been adopted nicely as reflection in the Mainframe Zone and comments floating back from individual customers.

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Next week is the annual Rational Software conference: Innovate, and the opportunity to hear Grady Booch, Walker Royce et al share developments (get it? developments?) in the area of Software and System Innovation. Streams range from Application Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Modernization, Application Security and Compliance, to Strategic Planning, and Software and Systems Innovation. Here is your chance to get updated on OSLC, Jazz, and all of the Portfolio pieces that contribute to new business outcomes. As the recent issue of CIO says, IT alignment and IT Value are no longer enough, business outcomes are what matter. (IT Value is Dead, Long Live Business Value -- May 15, 2011 edition)

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Oh, and one more thing of interest: The Register reports today that "IBM Guns down Mainframe accelerator in Texas...". So, zIIPs and zAAPs will continue to be used as IBM intended, and under the rules and restrictions that have been set over time.

They sum it up by saying:

"The hired legal guns were blazing, and when the smoke cleared, the US District Court for the Western District of Texas, located in Austin, granted a permanent injunction in favor of IBM in a long-running lawsuit Neon Enterprise Software, killing the controversial zPrime mainframe acceleration program."

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The 13 Volume ABCs of z/OS Systems Programming is a classic set, and the release of version 5 of Volume 9, dealing with UNIX Systems Services, seems a good time to highlight the series for those who may not be aware of it. For review, the series is aligned as follows:

Go ahead, read some under the covers, dig into the security troops of SAF, RACF, certificates and crypto, watch the magic of JCL unfold as it directs the legions of programs and data.... OK... maybe no flashlights under the covers, but these are great references. Maybe someday in more formats for e-readers? (hint to IBM publications!)

Well, I just got off US District Court jury duty and it was quite an interesting view into a different world. As one who had not avoided but just not participated before, you can imagine my little IT head's dialogue: where are the pictures? There is a whiteboard there, why don't they use it? Couldn't they put together a better compiled document of evidence briefs than this? I admit, I do the same thing when I go to the doctor's office and see the wall after wall of paper file folders and watch the physician dig through the handwritten notes jammed into the folder. Anyway, if a vacation is a change of scenery, than maybe that is what I had, but it sure did not feel like it!

How about the Amazon cloud outages and Sony security exposures? Characterized by the headline in the Economist as: Break-ins and Breakdowns, it seems we are seeing more of these sorts of things almost weekly. Again, whether it is cloud or general platform selection, put your enterprise systems hat on and access the Service Level Agreement section, remember the decades of work to define qualities of service and non-functional requirements that Enterprise Systems represents when you think of moving workload. Just because you are used to it all being built in and there, does not mean it will be in a new environment unless you make sure of it!! (Yes, System z and Enterprise Systems work with cloud and are still the most secure....)

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A final quick note, and a reflection of what I am sure we all do... as I was looking across the functional portfolio of our acquisitions, I thought to myself: what is Jeff Jonas of SRD doing these days?

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Well, it turns out he is speaking at IDUG, infusing his solutions into ILOG and Infosphere portfolios, and still thinking hard about privacy, in stream analytics, applying these new ideas to IBM 'Smarter' solutions, and earlier this year talked about his G2 or sense-making project that came out. quietly back in January. He talks about it several places and there is a nice slide deck on Slideshare here. where he talks about the skunk works G2 project, sense-making and the larger picture of work he is doing with the deck entitled: Confessions of an Architect. This is good stuff around both advancing and controlling the next generation of analytics which, as he puts it, deals with Privacy and Performance, and is Smarter and More Responsible.

Good Day! I was going to post a draft I had about now the 3/29/11 issue of the Lex Column in The Financial Times had a nice summary and reference on how IT has had a drop in costs of 3.5 per cent last year -- while health care went up 6 percent-- and then talk about what we are all seeing in cost control efforts. You know, 10% across the board, except how well Enterprise Systems are doing since they run the world and help implement new business models. (Really, it was all set!) Then, I was going to talk about the recent cloud announcements a couple of days ago, since we have had a thread about cloud, and talk about how important it is to be careful as you step onto you first cloud and think about the risk, who understands and has developed mechanisms dealing with security, backup, availability etc versus what could be just a little server in a rack somewhere. But then, another thread quietly weaves its way into my head this morning, and I realize it is time to post an entry.

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Sometimes large events have quiet taglines along the way. It is so short, I include it here from announcement 111-078 : (First the overview)

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In Hardware Announcement 110-177, dated July 22, 2010, "IBM® zEnterprise BladeCenter® Extension (zBX)," IBM introduced a new dimension in computing with the announcement of the IBM zEnterprise Server (zEnterprise). This first in the industry offering makes it possible to deploy an integrated hardware platform that brings mainframe and distributed technologies together -- a system that can start to replace individual islands of computing and can work to reduce complexity, lower costs, improve security, and bring applications closer to the data they need.

As part of that announcement we provided a road map for IBM's hybrid capabilities, the delivery of special-purpose workload optimizers and select general-purpose IBM blades. In 2010 we began to deliver, first with our business analytics solution -- IBM Smart Analytics Optimizer -- and then general-purpose POWER7™ blades. In February 2011 we continued with the announcement of the IBM WebSphere® DataPower® XI50 for zEnterprise (DataPower XI50z), a multifunctional appliance for the System z® environment that can be implemented to help provide XML hardware acceleration, and to streamline and secure valuable service-oriented architecture (SOA) applications.

The next step of the road map is to incorporate select IBM System x® technologies, originally targeted for the first half of 2011. The reaction to delivering IBM System x capabilities has been very positive, with our clients also asking that we support Microsoft® Windows®. Therefore, today we are revising our road map to include planned support for Windows on System x as well as a revised schedule for IBM System x blade delivery on the IBM zEnterprise Systems.

...and then the Statement of General Direction:

In the third quarter of 2011, IBM intends to offer select IBM System x blades running Linux® on System x in the IBM zEnterprise BladeCenter Extension Model 002.

All statements regarding IBM's plans, directions, and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice. Any reliance on these statements of general direction is at the relying party's sole risk and will not create liability or obligation for IBM

Today is one of those days we will look back on as a milestone. Want to control and manage you glass house? Want to control costs and manage complexity? zEnterprise. Let's go!

I had the opportunity recently to visit the zITA Boot Camp and speak with a community of Architects who watch over the mainframe or Enterprise Systems world. For those of you who don't know, zITAs are the System z IT Architect community in IBM. These are the guys who advise and guide the largest institutions as they keep the big systems evolving to meet current business initiatives with the appropriate technologies. Now I am not saying that there was not a few missing or grey hairs in residence, but there was a nice mix of what some HR folks might call 'vitality' representatives as well. While this community knows the intricacies of where virtual storage and channel commands started from, they were discussing developments that ranged from best fit and use of workloads across platforms, futures of zEnterprise capabilities, and guiding IT leaders on strategies for decisions based on Total Cost of Ownership based on the full range of use and expenditure categories that real clients experience. .. These folks are really the Trusted Advisors we hear about, the technical conscience overseeing change in our Enterprise Clients. While they were being vetted on topics from future extensions to current technologies, they were also looking at application in spaces such as Cloud, Industry specific frameworks and solutions, and the next stage of low level integration across component boundaries using open technologies to accelerate and increase options across technology providers that can give more options for solution innovation.As at any meeting or conference of this type, the conversations at breaks and meals are often some of the best. These are not individuals who are stuck in the quagmire of detail without a clue to what is going on with the business side at their clients. I heard conversations that included topics such as: how can we better understand industry trends our clients are dealing with, how can we help our customers better link IT and LOB initiatives so they are more effective and valuable once implemented, and what lessons can we leverage from other fields such as negotiation and the legal system to better communicate across disparate technical communities? .Sure, these guys know their availability strategies, but they also know what is going on with Web 3.0 and Linked Data, Economic and Risk Models of the Cloud Infrastructure, and what changes in compliance legislation might mean for reporting strategies and the systems behind them. .Who better to have guiding our largest and best institutions? Thank you zITAs.

z Growing: In the recent z/Journal I noted some impressive numbers for growth as shared by Bob Thomas on the publisher's page. In just the fourth quarter of last year, MIPS grew by an amazing 58% (the highest growth in a decade) and sales grew by 70% in the same period. zEnterprise systems pushed over 450 shipments representing 1.5 million MIPS. Whoa... no editorializing needed there, right?

GUI GUI everywhere... I was talking with some folks in a session about the new interfaces for development (RDz and IDE vs ISPF and lovely green screens) and the enhancements with sysprog, sorry systems programmer, tools with z/OS Management Facility and it made me flash back to when, in the late 70s, we worked with a customer to demo a function where you could actually start to put customized screens in color on ISPF. It was a pretty exciting thing-- that unfortunately went nowhere between the novelty, customization, and the fact that despite multiple run throughs ahead of time, the demo ran into (ahem) unforeseen technical difficulties. BUT the point was just the idea of color something we all agreed would be nice someday. Heck, even the 3290 gas panel display with its pretty orange characters was enough variety to get many speculating. (I mean come on, color TV only broadcast around 1967, right?)

..and Smarter everywhere... This all made me think about how we are simultaneously getting further away from our systems while interacting with them more intensely all the time. With phones and iPads with touch screens the distance and links in the chain is longer than ever and yet the response and interaction is greater too. In a matter of minutes I have watched a demo where a CICS transaction gets enabled with EGL and modern tooling from Rational to expose a banking application on an iPhone. Between CICS events, Webshere process engines, and appliances like DataPower, or ILOG rules engines, the options for dynamic interactions in flight are now astounding. Change a business rule, a process, a partner or supplier and it is not 2 years of waterfall development and testing, it can be moments. It is not just intelligent and instrumented devices as part of a smarter planter that are interconnected, there has been a lot happening back at the old IT shop too! Don't forget those web transactions have at least as many CICS transactions to match them every day (around 30 Billion the last someone looked at it a few years ago). And yes, most of the data is still back home in the datacenter for enterprises-- and moving there more daily with private clouds too. So go and play, do real work, whatever.... don't worry, we (z and enterprise systems) got it covered behind the scenes.

Oh Look! As IBM moves to consolidate security solutions, gets into Social Business courses for free, or --of course --having the Watson machine play on Jeopardy, you see the span of influence grow and expand beyond the traditional boundaries of IT. So, it becomes more important to think about how we talk with the folks in these difference places. For instance, I was recently at an IBM sponsored session where the now long established Eclipse client was a base for a number of Enterprise level development tools from Rational and there was someone not long out of school watching next to me. Suddenly, I heard: 'Oh look, it looks just like Visual Basic!'.

Exactly. We in the large systems, and for that matter distributed world, in IBM have been trying to get the message out for years about the evolution of tooling and the use of GUI interfaces, perspectives, and attractiveness with productivity for the next generation of IT coming along. We talk about skills, the changing of the guard, and the Academic Initiative and yet I don't think I heard in any of the materials someone actually come out and say the perfect thing to link to the next generations experience with programming!In Management Speak: Another example has to do with the aging workforce OR the aging technology challenge that goes on cycle after cycle. Sometimes it seems that this is a new crisis business has not had to deal with -- the whole issue of either old technology or the baby boomers being half of the large systems crowd and depending on what study you look at, the majority of them at least eligible for 'transition from the workforce'. And yet... while reading the current issue of Strategic Finance (the publication of the Institute of Management Accountants) there was a nice article about business as usual for planning the transition of executive leadership. They call it:Succession Planning.

Now, why the heck don't we use that term?? That is all Y2K was, or the first Virtual System, Telecommunication Network, SOA Solution... just business as usual and Succession Planning. For those of us who are in IT, or contribute to the changes around IT, we should remember this: The guys making the decisions are used to and familiar with a whole process around the discipline of succession planning. It fits into existing governance and strategy processes. It is immediately understandable and rings the bell in the cranium. Who is our next leader, the next big thing, zNext (sorry, not the official moniker-- though many of us have heard it!) technology? Use the right phrase or lingo and it is: '...No problem, we know how to deal with that. ...' Why didn't you says so..?So, let's try to see if we can get the eyes to light up, the bell to ring, the light bulb shining. Try to find the right phrase to link to the experience and world of your non-IT partners. After all, it is called Enterprise, that means we need to connect everywhere and with everyone.... Use the right connection phrase and it can be, as the Cowardly Lion said in the Wizard of Oz: "...why didn't you say so?!..."

This headline came across my virtual desk last week, and I don't even remember how I found that, but I rushed immediately to two places. First, the direct link from the Register, and secondly to IBM news and System z news. This is pretty big stuff, and I will share a couple of key extracts and let the article do the talking:" The second big change that's coming with the zBX, according to Doris
Conti, director of System z marketing at IBM, is that Microsoft's
Windows operating system will be supported on the Xeon blade servers
inside the zBX complex. IBM has hosted over 300 workshops with mainframe
customers discussing the new hybrid system, and customers were not
exactly happy that IBM was restricting Linux to Xeon blades and not
supporting Windows.

"We heard the feedback and we very much intend to deliver Windows support on zBX," says Conti."

...and a little bit later.....

"You may be wondering why Windows and Linux support on the Xeon blades
in the zBX didn't ship back in November with the Power-AIX blades.
Jeffrey Frey, the IBM Fellow and System z architect who designed the
zEnterprise 196-zBX hybrid, says that the Xeon blades are coming later
because IBM's Power-AIX customers were the ones Big Blue felt would take
to the hybrid computing model first. (IBM is also fixated on preserving
its market share in the Unix racket against resurgent Oracle and HP.)
The plan now is to get Linux support on Xeon blades out the door this
year, and then add Windows support as soon as possible.

Frey said that IBM was not sure how deeply it would have to get into
the operating system or hypervisor code to manage AIX, Linux, or Windows
when it started the zBX. So AIX, which IBM has the source code for, and
Linux, which is open source, were the easiest places to start. IBM
didn't want to get involved with Windows until it knew what it might
need from Microsoft in the way of cooperation. "As it turns out, there
is very little of that," Frey explained to El Reg, referring to the need to get into Windows code to make the OS work on the hybrid system.

Frey also let the cat out of the bag on what hypervisor IBM is using
on the blades. IBM's own Processor Resource/System Manage (PR/SM) type 1
hypervisor and its related z/VM operating system (which can function as
a type 2 hypervisor) are used to dice and slice the zEnterprise 196.
The company's own PowerVM hypervisor is used on the Power7 blades to
carve them up into logical slices and to virtualize I/O on the blades.
IBM has chosen a variant of Red Hat's Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV),
the commercial-grade implementation of the KVM hypervisor for x64 iron,
for the Xeon blades; this tweaked version is known as RHEV-Blue,
predictably, and is made to cooperate with IBM's mainframe firmware.
Power VM will support AIX 5.3, 6.1, and 7.1, and Conti says that if
mainframe shops want to run the IBM i 7.1 operating system (formerly
known as OS/400) on Power blades, IBM will consider it, says Conti. As
for Linux on Power, Frey says there will be a need for it, but that
Windows on Xeon blades is more important to get to market given the
installed base of machines at mainframe shops. "

Responding to client feedback, there are no excuses now, just let the z196 and zBX flow across the datacenter like an amoeba ....... Read the article and think about it.

Well, a quick personal note to explain the absence of postings. On Oct 11, I started work and had a chest and jaw pain that, long story short, led to a heart bypass and my absence from this blog and work for too much of the fall. It was quite a surprise and hole to fall into, so welcome back me!.Some of my main observations from the sidelines include laughing at the new phone with tiles which lets you know there is activity for mail or social networking sites (see Lotus Notes basic concept that is how old? 10-12 years?), the zEnterprise system becoming available, and continued tech announcements from CMOS Integrated Silicon Nanophotonics (as in 10x density, with electrical and optical devices on the same piece of silicon) to a range of announcements on security, smart solutions, and the cloud. .I notices the magazine, Government Technology, had a good article on Modernization, as did zJournal, and Mainframe Executive had a cover story on the creation of the new zEnterprise systems. In the legacy systems article in Government Technology, there is a good reference to the NASCIO survey in '08 that has the top 2 drivers as changes to business processes, and inability to support LOB requirements. Nice reminder about where to start in an enterprise before any tech change effort, huh? .OK, back with more, gotta ease into things again ya know...

I was listening to a popular weekly technology podcast (hint hint) when they mentioned how Intel has made a chip for a Gateway PC which, when you need to, you can upgrade in place with a $50 upgrade card. According to PC Magazine (here), the card is used to unlock hyper-threading and additional cache. While the first reaction may be, and was on this podcast, 'wait a minute, why aren't they giving me all the capability?', one of the participants quickly added: '..wait a minute, this is a really good idea... think of the costs savings, extending the life of the processor and...'. OK, obviously I paraphrase, but you get the point. Capacity on Demand has come to the desktop. .While reading many of the news items related to this clearly shows the initial confusion reflected in the podcast I listened to, others are starting to realize the implications. How long until we have extra processors available to turn on? When do we finally get raid devices for disk that ensure we don't ever lose things on these sometimes fragile home systems? Will we ever get to the point where our desktops get dynamic snapshots to enable variable leasing schemes? ....or the ability to turn on more power for temporary periods of time? My peers and I joke about how we have been cheating for decades by knowing about large systems and watching those capabilities stream down to distributed platforms. Now, maybe, we're able to talk about and share some tech insights with our kids or grand-kids! ."All right Grandpa, turn up the computer and turn down the thermostat, the grand-kids are coming!"

I am heading for some travel so wanted to get my mid month update done now. One of the interesting things about technology is the lag before announcements start to filter out into the world. It has been about 6 weeks since zEnterprise hit the stage and I notice through my RSS feed aggregator that suddenly this last week or so there are lots of 'news' posts that, golly gee, IBM has the fastest processor in the z196 at 5.2 GHz --while one typo'd it at 5.6. While that is great, they usually stop there since the PC culture, I guess, seems to think that is all that matters when it comes to performance; systems performance. .They don't tend to continue and say:

Wow, there must be some changes in the caching and storage (as we know there was with 4 levels, increased capacities, and lower prices) to feed those fast processors and keep them busy!

Or, they don't ask: Is this in addition to more instructions being added ,as IBM usually does, for even more throughput? (yes, over 100 and many Java related)

Or how about: Are there new ways to increase parallelism? ( or to deal with execution of instructions themselves as in: out of order processing OR the biggie: adding zBX!)

But, it is good to see the news is filtering out there. The other response I am seeing as folks start to think about what the zEnterprise (z196 and zBX) might mean are some of the questions. One is about the implications for integrated service management,ant there is a great blog about the new offerings for the system here. (Jennifer Dennis discusses the implications and some of the new offerings related to Application Management, Application Resilience, Security, and Asset and Financial Management. ).Another question-- or class of question -- is about fit and where to use it, could I use it for.....what? Naturally, this leads to a discussion and as the realization hits I hear comments like:

You mean I could put servers from different platforms in one system that cover my e-business infrastructure here...and have it managed ?

Wait, I could put most or all of those pieces that relate to my SAP infrastructure there...?

Or, Really, as this thing evolves with more appliances, optimizers, and blades....Wow...!

OK, they are paraphrased, but the light does go on over the heads of people as they think about where this is heading. And we are just about to see step one as availability starts this fall......

Back when the the largest processor was a MIP (million instructions a second vs the 50K MIPS of just the z196 Central Processing Complex...) and a megabyte of memory on the 'mainframe' was a million dollars or so (versus about a thousand fold less now with memory advancements and the latest announcements), we saw not only the creation of distributed systems and strategies to optimize the effective use of those key resources, but also looked hard at individual user's cycle use. Of particular focus were systems programmers, developers, and 2 or 3D drafting. We know that CAD stations evolved, and that each TSO user (sysprog or AD) were looked at very closely since --and I remember doing these studies --- each user could easily be linked to say.... a percent or more of CPU usage as recently as the 80's. (Ouch!) .Fast forward to 2010 and the latest evolutionary strategy includes a strong focus on both cycle savings and productivity savings for users. For systems programmers, we have the z/OS Management Facility (which we have mentioned a few times) which is accessible via a browser. For developers on system z, there is the Rational Developer for System z (with Java or EGL). Besides being and eclipse based IDE, the workstation based tool does local syntax checking and -- with the new Unit Test feature -- also offloads still additional cycles. With the focus on effective use of system resources, and the emphasis on maintenance and operational support costs (since they represent a large portion of IT budgets still) these approaches should not be overlooked since they not only address both concerns of animate and inanimate resources (people and machines), but do so in an integrated way. .It is also nice to note that these are just part of a strategy to have tooling that are similar across multiple roles and platforms which address the challenges of models that involve extended development infrastructures for globally integrated enterprises that involve development centers located ...well... anywhere. (See near shore, off shore, on shore and models that are complicated to manage for shore! ) Groan.......and these are just the first level tools since Rational also has strategies for communication across teams (Rational Team Concert for z ), for modernizing the UI and accessing legacy applications through the tool Host Access Transformation Services, and for advancing SOA services strategies that optimize component reuse by looking at what is out there today via Rational Asset Analyzer . .OK... I won't go off on portfolio reviews here, but will also mention that you should not overlook one of the most obvious areas for effective use of resources and that is: make sure you are current on software compilers since Big Blue has quietly been enhancing them on ALL platforms, but certainly System z...... and the impact over the last 5 years or so can add up to total improvements that may double or more performance across a range of language/subsystem/platform combinations. .So, don't get caught short with old tooling. Refresh, renew and refurbish. Change things out and up. Your mom may have told you to change out your old under things since you never know who may see them. I say change out your older system things before an audit shows you have been missing out on big savings and you have egg on your face to your management team. (How is that for mixed metaphors?) Oh, and do take time this labor day to take a break and set down that phone and e-mail system!

In case you have not seen the Fit for Purpose materials from your friendly IBM site or local team calling on you enterprise, there are a number tools available to help you determine 'best fit' for servers and workload. Based on insight from some external studies, they focus on workloads related to business intelligence and analytics, Web and SOA, traditional transaction, and suites like ERP, CRM, SCM etc. Best Fit has been around a long time with concepts like Balanced Systems (a nod to Ray Wicks et al), 'loved ones' ( and a tip of the hat to Seibo Freisenborg), and constant fiddling with levels and amounts of cache to keep data flowing to the big engines crunching away ---even when those engines where what we would now consider little guys. Yep, some workloads need more or less qualities of service (QoS), or non functional requirements like availability, security, performance and so on. And some are more compute or I/O intensive, shorter or longer transactions, spread across infrastructures or limited to running on isolated or even specialized processors. This all makes sense to the technical mind, but it is a good idea to remember the power of inertia, decisions already made, and what one buddy called Fit for Politics. It is tough to make changes when decisions are often not re-examined or justified -- they get cast in stone or aligned with factions and can be perceived to be linked to career paths even. Don't forget that in you consolidation or movement plans for the z196 and zEnterprise we have talked about! And don't forget that part of the power of being able to QUICKLY move workloads across platforms in the new complex is that you can quickly try things out and over time learn to trust the idea of decisions not caste in stone, maybe not doing lots of analysis ahead of time and just freaking try it!! (Hey, there's an idea....) On another 'how things have changed' I cleaned my office recently and found I tossed both round and square backup discs galore. Between more reliable cheaper drives, and backup schemes offsite I realized it had been awhile since I did that hours long data backup and labeling fun time. The other thing I found was a folder of magnetic shapes representing e-business server types. Ten years ago or so when the idea of creating these e-business infrastructures with customers was new I'd find a magnetic whiteboard (easier than you think for big companies) and slap these blocks on the wall with new names like web servers, application servers, portal, gateways for voice or files or B2B....and we would plan out the new world of opening up the enterprise to partners, suppliers and customers. Those concepts and server types are common place now, so I felt pretty secure in setting them free too. ...but maybe I should think about making a new set of magnet blocks with lines of business or service types, with event categories and collaboration options as discussions for the next wave of Smart systems start getting built?

Ta-da! The zEnterprise is out!!I admit I hinted a while back, and yes a
little bit last time, about continued evolution and here… it…. is… the System of Systems, the third dimension
of not just making processors with faster engines or specialized function, not
just growing the number of processors, but now pulling in other platform systems
into the z complex.

After going to the teach the teachers session, I took my
notes and summarized them for some internal calls with teams, so have been
summarizing and netting out, boiling the ocean and relooking at materials.I won’t try to give an announcement here, but
just touch on some highlights.

First, realize the vertical integration this reflects, the
added dimension of creating the hypervisor of hypervisors (Universal Resource Manager)
on top of the other platforms so that the zEnterprise system now wraps its arms
around --and the amount of integration represented here.(I understand our friends at Gartner used the
term: 'brilliant' in describing the Universal Resource Manager !)

Next, look at the concept of being able to manage, as in
Service Level Agreements, not just workload, but security, availability and
virtualization targets. (..and the implied amount of monitoring and reporting
behind the scenes…)

Then, look at the absolutely killer numbers BOTH in the base
complex of the z196 for the kinds of technology improvements we are used to
seeing in new z generations, and also in the incredible impact on space,
energy, and operating costs compared to an infrastructure before (yesterday!) the
zEnterprise complex.

Note that in the z Blade Extension (zBX), that the Power7
and SAO optimizer blades are first, followed next year by DataPower and x-series
blades. Take a hard look at what improvements to certain star queries-- that
may be 80 fold (or more)-- might do to the concept of how you build your
analytics and process systems.And….. if
you have looked at the System z Management Facility, look at the new CICS
Deployment Assistant that may reduce administrative time up to 80% !

OK, I am giddy… I promised not to repeat the announcement
here. It is just so packed with improvements it will take us all time to fully
absorb it.So, dive it, we’ll talk
later.

Looking through the current issue of Mainframe Executive, (you are subscribed, right?) and saw a nice interview with some of the Academic Initiative students. I also noted that there will be university program representatives at Share this year to talk with mainframe shop managers in August in Boston (see z Events ). The theme continues in IBM Systems Magazine for the Mainframewith the article: Educated for Success..These items made me nostalgic, thinking of Dr. Seuss and "all the wonderful things they'll see!" We old fog-gees saw virtual storage, MVT, SVS, MVS, and up to z/OS and they may see operating systems so many levels of complexity and abstraction above what we have watched it boggles the mind. We abstracted platforms with middleware running anywhere and then raising the bar by abstracting run-times with the evolutionary result of early CSP and VA/GEN to the current Enterprise Generation Language: EGL. We watched virtualization from basic storage to VM, server consolidation, and federation, and they start by taking steps on the cloud!.On the note of systems evolving, it seems I am hearing about more enterprises looking hard at long term systems that were build over decades to perform incredibly efficiently but, alas, in many cases (since they are rigid and tightly coupled), when it is time to introduce the change monster, the prospect of 'different' overwhelms them. Projected costs, time, & risks start to look pretty scary. Hey, just remember that the remodeling industry is bigger than new housing construction, and build that value case regardless of how large the 'maintenance' is to your application or infrastructure base. .And don't forget, there are many more options with componentization, messaging, event-based architectures, SOA and web services; not to mentionand modernization transformation strategies and tooling that weren't there just a few years ago. Remember VSE to MVS migrations? How about Y2K? The longer you go without changing, the bigger the bump --whatever the system. .Just remember: start small (skunk works and prototypes) , draw some good pictures (architectural models), bring extra sandwinches (resources)....maintain your perspective (humor). Or maybe, wait for some magic that we have yet to see!!